The assignee of this invention has during the past quarter-century manufactured and sold great quantities of doors in accordance with its Pease Pat. No. 3,153,817. These doors comprise a pair of stiles and top and bottom rails of wood cooperating to define a rectangular frame, a pair of opposed skins of sheet steel mounted on this frame and cooperating therewith to define an enclosed interior space, and a plastic foam core substantially filling that interior space. The metal skins have been finished by painting, and they have also been provided both with integrally formed panel portions and with inset window panels.
These metal skin doors have been consistently successful and popular, but there is also a market for doors of composite construction which include skins of materials capable of receiving decorative finishes not generally applicable to steel skins. For example, it has been proposed to form the skins of a compression molded resin reinforced with glass fibers which can be molded to the desired dimensions and at the same provided with an outer surface design reproducing a wood grain pattern. The present invention is directed to the production of improved doors of composite construction as further described hereinafter.